“I don’t absolutely talk about boils. I merely mentioned that Job had
them. Yes, I agree with you, Aunt Dahlia, that things are not looking
too oojah-cum-spiff at the moment, but be of good cheer. A Wooster is
seldom baffled for more than the nonce.”
“You rather expect to be coming along shortly with another of your
schemes?”
“At any minute.”
She sighed resignedly.
“I thought as much. Well, it needed but this. I don’t see how things
could possibly be worse than they are, but no doubt you will succeed in
making them so. Your genius and insight will find the way. Carry on,
Bertie. Yes, carry on. I am past caring now. I shall even find a faint
interest in seeing into what darker and profounder abysses of hell
you can plunge this home. Go to it, lad.... What’s that stuff you’re
eating?”
“I find it a little difficult to classify. Some sort of paste on toast.
Rather like glue flavoured with beef extract.”
“Gimme,” said Aunt Dahlia listlessly.
“Be careful how you chew,” I advised. “It sticketh closer than a
brother.... Yes, Jeeves?”
The man had materialized on the carpet. Absolutely noiseless, as usual.
“A note for you, sir.”
“A note for me, Jeeves?”
“A note for you, sir.”
“From whom, Jeeves?”
“From Miss Bassett, sir.”
“From whom, Jeeves?”
“From Miss Bassett, sir.”
“From Miss Bassett, Jeeves?”
“From Miss Bassett, sir.”
At this point, Aunt Dahlia, who had taken one nibble at her
whatever-it-was-on-toast and laid it down, begged us--a little
fretfully, I thought--for heaven’s sake to cut out the cross-talk
vaudeville stuff, as she had enough to bear already without having to
listen to us doing our imitation of the Two Macs. Always willing to
oblige, I dismissed Jeeves with a nod, and he flickered for a moment
and was gone. Many a spectre would have been less slippy.
“But what,” I mused, toying with the envelope, “can this female be
writing to me about?”
“Why not open the damn thing and see?”
“A very excellent idea,” I said, and did so.
“And if you are interested in my movements,” proceeded Aunt Dahlia,
heading for the door, “I propose to go to my room, do some Yogi deep
breathing, and try to forget.”
“Quite,” I said absently, skimming p. l. And then, as I turned over,
a sharp howl broke from my lips, causing Aunt Dahlia to shy like a
startled mustang.
“Don’t do it!” she exclaimed, quivering in every limb.
“Yes, but dash it----”
“What a pest you are, you miserable object,” she sighed. “I remember
years ago, when you were in your cradle, being left alone with you one
day and you nearly swallowed your rubber comforter and started turning
purple. And I, ass that I was, took it out and saved your life. Let
me tell you, young Bertie, it will go very hard with you if you ever
swallow a rubber comforter again when only I am by to aid.”
“But, dash it!” I cried. “Do you know what’s happened? Madeline Bassett
says she’s going to marry me!”
“I hope it keeps fine for you,” said the relative, and passed from the
room looking like something out of an Edgar Allan Poe story.
-21-
I don’t suppose I was looking so dashed unlike something out of an
Edgar Allan Poe story myself, for, as you can readily imagine, the news
item which I have just recorded had got in amongst me properly. If
the Bassett, in the belief that the Wooster heart had long been hers
and was waiting ready to be scooped in on demand, had decided to take
up her option, I should, as a man of honour and sensibility, have no
choice but to come across and kick in. The matter was obviously not one
that could be straightened out with a curt _nolle prosequi_. All the
evidence, therefore, seemed to point to the fact that the doom had come
upon me and, what was more, had come to stay.
And yet, though it would be idle to pretend that my grip on the
situation was quite the grip I would have liked it to be, I did not
despair of arriving at a solution. A lesser man, caught in this awful
snare, would no doubt have thrown in the towel at once and ceased to
struggle; but the whole point about the Woosters is that they are not
lesser men.
By way of a start, I read the note again. Not that I had any hope that
a second perusal would enable me to place a different construction on
its contents, but it helped to fill in while the brain was limbering
up. I then, to assist thought, had another go at the fruit salad, and
in addition ate a slice of sponge cake. And it was as I passed on to
the cheese that the machinery started working. I saw what had to be
done.
To the question which had been exercising the mind--viz., can Bertram
cope?--I was now able to reply with a confident “Absolutely.”
The great wheeze on these occasions of dirty work at the crossroads is
not to lose your head but to keep cool and try to find the ringleaders.
Once find the ringleaders, and you know where you are.
The ringleader here was plainly the Bassett. It was she who had started
the whole imbroglio by chucking Gussie, and it was clear that before
anything could be done to solve and clarify, she must be induced to
revise her views and take him on again. This would put Angela back into
circulation, and that would cause Tuppy to simmer down a bit, and then
we could begin to get somewhere.
I decided that as soon as I had had another morsel of cheese I would
seek this Bassett out and be pretty eloquent.
And at this moment in she came. I might have foreseen that she would be
turning up shortly. I mean to say, hearts may ache, but if they know
that there is a cold collation set out in the dining-room, they are
pretty sure to come popping in sooner or later.
Her eyes, as she entered the room, were fixed on the salmon mayonnaise,
and she would no doubt have made a bee-line for it and started getting
hers, had I not, in the emotion of seeing her, dropped a glass of the
best with which I was endeavouring to bring about a calmer frame of
mind. The noise caused her to turn, and for an instant embarrassment
supervened. A slight flush mantled the cheek, and the eyes popped a bit.
“Oh!” she said.
I have always found that there is nothing that helps to ease you over
one of these awkward moments like a spot of stage business. Find
something to do with your hands, and it’s half the battle. I grabbed a
plate and hastened forward.
“A touch of salmon?”
“Thank you.”
“With a suspicion of salad?”
“If you please.”
“And to drink? Name the poison.”
“I think I would like a little orange juice.”
She gave a gulp. Not at the orange juice, I don’t mean, because she
hadn’t got it yet, but at all the tender associations those two words
provoked. It was as if someone had mentioned spaghetti to the relict
of an Italian organ-grinder. Her face flushed a deeper shade, she
registered anguish, and I saw that it was no longer within the sphere
of practical politics to try to confine the conversation to neutral
topics like cold boiled salmon.
So did she, I imagine, for when I, as a preliminary to getting down to
brass tacks, said “Er,” she said “Er,” too, simultaneously, the brace
of “Ers” clashing in mid-air.
“I’m sorry.”
“I beg your pardon.”
“You were saying----”
“You were saying----”
“No, please go on.”
“Oh, right-ho.”
I straightened the tie, my habit when in this girl’s society, and had
at it:
“With reference to yours of even date----”
She flushed again, and took a rather strained forkful of salmon.
“You got my note?”
“Yes, I got your note.”
“I gave it to Jeeves to give it to you.”
“Yes, he gave it to me. That’s how I got it.”
There was another silence. And as she was plainly shrinking from
talking turkey, I was reluctantly compelled to do so. I mean, somebody
had got to. Too dashed silly, a male and female in our position simply
standing eating salmon and cheese at one another without a word.
“Yes, I got it all right.”
“I see. You got it.”
“Yes, I got it. I’ve just been reading it. And what I was rather
wanting to ask you, if we happened to run into each other, was--well,
what about it?”
“What about it?”
“That’s what I say: What about it?”
“But it was quite clear.”
“Oh, quite. Perfectly clear. Very well expressed and all that.
But--I mean--Well, I mean, deeply sensible of the honour, and so
forth--but---- Well, dash it!”
She had polished off her salmon, and now put the plate down.
“Fruit salad?”
“No, thank you.”
“Spot of pie?”
“No, thanks.”
“One of those glue things on toast?”
“No, thank you.”
She took a cheese straw. I found a cold egg which I had overlooked.
Then I said “I mean to say” just as she said “I think I know”, and
there was another collision.
“I beg your pardon.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Do go on.”
“No, you go on.”
I waved my cold egg courteously, to indicate that she had the floor,
and she started again:
“I think I know what you are trying to say. You are surprised.”
“Yes.”
“You are thinking of----”
“Exactly.”
“--Mr. Fink-Nottle.”
“The very man.”
“You find what I have done hard to understand.”
“Absolutely.”
“I don’t wonder.”
“I do.”
“And yet it is quite simple.”
She took another cheese straw. She seemed to like cheese straws.
“Quite simple, really. I want to make you happy.”
“Dashed decent of you.”
“I am going to devote the rest of my life to making you happy.”
“A very matey scheme.”
“I can at least do that. But--may I be quite frank with you, Bertie?”
“Oh, rather.”
“Then I must tell you this. I am fond of you. I will marry you. I will
do my best to make you a good wife. But my affection for you can never
be the flamelike passion I felt for Augustus.”
“Just the very point I was working round to. There, as you say, is the
snag. Why not chuck the whole idea of hitching up with me? Wash it out
altogether. I mean, if you love old Gussie----”
“No longer.”
“Oh, come.”
“No. What happened this afternoon has killed my love. A smear of
ugliness has been drawn across a thing of beauty, and I can never feel
towards him as I did.”
I saw what she meant, of course. Gussie had bunged his heart at her
feet; she had picked it up, and, almost immediately after doing so,
had discovered that he had been stewed to the eyebrows all the time.
The shock must have been severe. No girl likes to feel that a chap has
got to be thoroughly plastered before he can ask her to marry him. It
wounds the pride.
Nevertheless, I persevered.
“But have you considered,” I said, “that you may have got a wrong line
on Gussie’s performance this afternoon? Admitted that all the evidence
points to a more sinister theory, what price him simply having got a
touch of the sun? Chaps do get touches of the sun, you know, especially
when the weather’s hot.”
She looked at me, and I saw that she was putting in a bit of the old
drenched-irises stuff.
“It was like you to say that, Bertie. I respect you for it.”
“Oh, no.”
“Yes. You have a splendid, chivalrous soul.”
“Not a bit.”
“Yes, you have. You remind me of Cyrano.”
“Who?”
“Cyrano de Bergerac.”
“The chap with the nose?”
“Yes.”
I can’t say I was any too pleased. I felt the old beak furtively. It
was a bit on the prominent side, perhaps, but, dash it, not in the
Cyrano class. It began to look as if the next thing this girl would do
would be to compare me to Schnozzle Durante.
“He loved, but pleaded another’s cause.”
“Oh, I see what you mean now.”
“I like you for that, Bertie. It was fine of you--fine and big. But
it is no use. There are things which kill love. I can never forget
Augustus, but my love for him is dead. I will be your wife.”
Well, one has to be civil.
“Right ho,” I said. “Thanks awfully.”
Then the dialogue sort of poofed out once more, and we stood eating
cheese straws and cold eggs respectively in silence. There seemed to
exist some little uncertainty as to what the next move was.
Fortunately, before embarrassment could do much more supervening,
Angela came in, and this broke up the meeting. Then Bassett announced
our engagement, and Angela kissed her and said she hoped she would be
very, very happy, and the Bassett kissed her and said she hoped she
would be very, very happy with Gussie, and Angela said she was sure she
would, because Augustus was such a dear, and the Bassett kissed her
again, and Angela kissed her again and, in a word, the whole thing got
so bally feminine that I was glad to edge away.
I would have been glad to do so, of course, in any case, for if ever
there was a moment when it was up to Bertram to think, and think hard,
this moment was that moment.
It was, it seemed to me, the end. Not even on the occasion, some years
earlier, when I had inadvertently become betrothed to Tuppy’s frightful
Cousin Honoria, had I experienced a deeper sense of being waist high
in the gumbo and about to sink without trace. I wandered out into the
garden, smoking a tortured gasper, with the iron well embedded in the
soul. And I had fallen into a sort of trance, trying to picture what
it would be like having the Bassett on the premises for the rest of my
life and at the same time, if you follow me, trying not to picture what
it would be like, when I charged into something which might have been a
tree, but was not--being, in point of fact, Jeeves.
“I beg your pardon, sir,” he said. “I should have moved to one side.”
I did not reply. I stood looking at him in silence. For the sight of
him had opened up a new line of thought.
This Jeeves, now, I reflected. I had formed the opinion that he had
lost his grip and was no longer the force he had been, but was it not
possible, I asked myself, that I might be mistaken? Start him off
exploring avenues and might he not discover one through which I would
be enabled to sneak off to safety, leaving no hard feelings behind? I
found myself answering that it was quite on the cards that he might.
After all, his head still bulged out at the back as of old. One noted
in the eyes the same intelligent glitter.
Mind you, after what had passed between us in the matter of that white
mess-jacket with the brass buttons, I was not prepared absolutely
to hand over to the man. I would, of course, merely take him into
consultation. But, recalling some of his earlier triumphs--the
Sipperley Case, the Episode of My Aunt Agatha and the Dog McIntosh,
and the smoothly handled Affair of Uncle George and The Barmaid’s
Niece were a few that sprang to my mind--I felt justified at least in
offering him the opportunity of coming to the aid of the young master
in his hour of peril.
But before proceeding further, there was one thing that had got to be
understood between us, and understood clearly.
“Jeeves,” I said, “a word with you.”
“Sir?”
“I am up against it a bit, Jeeves.”
“I am sorry to hear that, sir. Can I be of any assistance?”
“Quite possibly you can, if you have not lost your grip. Tell me
frankly, Jeeves, are you in pretty good shape mentally?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Still eating plenty of fish?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then it may be all right. But there is just one point before I begin.
In the past, when you have contrived to extricate self or some pal from
some little difficulty, you have frequently shown a disposition to take
advantage of my gratitude to gain some private end. Those purple socks,
for instance. Also the plus fours and the Old Etonian spats. Choosing
your moment with subtle cunning, you came to me when I was weakened by
relief and got me to get rid of them. And what I am saying now is that
if you are successful on the present occasion there must be no rot of
that description about that mess-jacket of mine.”
“Very good, sir.”
“You will not come to me when all is over and ask me to jettison the
jacket?”
“Certainly not, sir.”
“On that understanding then, I will carry on. Jeeves, I’m engaged.”
“I hope you will be very happy, sir.”
“Don’t be an ass. I’m engaged to Miss Bassett.”
“Indeed, sir? I was not aware----”
“Nor was I. It came as a complete surprise. However, there it is. The
official intimation was in that note you brought me.”
“Odd, sir.”
“What is?”
“Odd, sir, that the contents of that note should have been as you
describe. It seemed to me that Miss Bassett, when she handed me the
communication, was far from being in a happy frame of mind.”
“She is far from being in a happy frame of mind. You don’t suppose
she really wants to marry me, do you? Pshaw, Jeeves! Can’t you see
that this is simply another of those bally gestures which are rapidly
rendering Brinkley Court a hell for man and beast? Dash all gestures,
is my view.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, what’s to be done?”
“You feel that Miss Bassett, despite what has occurred, still retains a
fondness for Mr. Fink-Nottle, sir?”
“She’s pining for him.”
“In that case, sir, surely the best plan would be to bring about a
reconciliation between them.”
“How? You see. You stand silent and twiddle the fingers. You are
stumped.”
“No, sir. If I twiddled my fingers, it was merely to assist thought.”
“Then continue twiddling.”
“It will not be necessary, sir.”
“You don’t mean you’ve got a bite already?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You astound me, Jeeves. Let’s have it.”
“The device which I have in mind is one that I have already mentioned
to you, sir.”
“When did you ever mention any device to me?”
“If you will throw your mind back to the evening of our arrival, sir.
You were good enough to inquire of me if I had any plan to put forward
with a view to bringing Miss Angela and Mr. Glossop together, and I
ventured to suggest----”
“Good Lord! Not the old fire-alarm thing?”
“Precisely, sir.”
“You’re still sticking to that?”
“Yes, sir.”
It shows how much the ghastly blow I had received had shaken me when
I say that, instead of dismissing the proposal with a curt “Tchah!”
or anything like that, I found myself speculating as to whether there
might not be something in it, after all.
When he had first mooted this fire-alarm scheme of his, I had sat
upon it, if you remember, with the maximum of promptitude and vigour.
“Rotten” was the adjective I had employed to describe it, and you may
recall that I mused a bit sadly, considering the idea conclusive proof
of the general breakdown of a once fine mind. But now it somehow began
to look as if it might have possibilities. The fact of the matter was
that I had about reached the stage where I was prepared to try anything
once, however goofy.
“Just run through that wheeze again, Jeeves,” I said thoughtfully. “I
remember thinking it cuckoo, but it may be that I missed some of the
finer shades.”
“Your criticism of it at the time, sir, was that it was too elaborate,
but I do not think it is so in reality. As I see it, sir, the occupants
of the house, hearing the fire bell ring, will suppose that a
conflagration has broken out.”